Voters in a national referendum have overwhelmingly rejected the Labour government’s proposal to create a permanent body for indigenous people to advise parliament. The defeat is a blow for those looking to close the gap between Australia’s indigenous people and the rest of the population. Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, said the result should not divide Australians.
Speaking from Canberra, some 15 years after Labour prime minister Kevin Rudd issued a national apology to Aboriginal people for their treatment at the hands of European settlers, Albanese appealed for unity.
Having earlier said the referendum gave Australians the chance to show their “generosity of spirit”, he said he respected the public’s decision.
“This moment of disagreement does not define us. And it will not divide us. We are not yes voters or no voters. We are all Australians.”
Not all votes have been counted, but latest projections suggest 40 per cent of voters nationwide backed the referendum, while 60 per cent rejected it.
To pass, a referendum needs to secure a “double majority” of more than half of voters nationally, and at least four of the six states.
Australia’s last referendum 24 years ago was significantly closer, when just under 55 per cent rejected a push to become a republic.
The resounding defeat is a huge blow for Albanese, who promised to hold a referendum in the opening minutes of his election victory speech in May last year.
Liberal opposition leader Peter Dutton, who has fronted the campaign against the Voice, said Albanese owed an apology to the public for holding such a “divisive” referendum in the first place.
“This is the referendum Australia did not need to have,” Dutton said. “The proposal and the process should be designed to unite Australians not divide them. What we’ve seen tonight is Australians in their millions reject the prime minister’s divisive referendum.”
Indigenous leaders who fought for the Voice called for a “week of silence”, releasing a statement announcing that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags would be lowered at half-mast during the mourning period.
“This is a bitter irony. That people who have only been on this continent for 235 years would refuse to recognise those whose home this land has been for 60,000 and more years is beyond reason,” according to the statement.
The main Yes campaign group — Yes23 — endorsed the statement, along with the Uluru Dialogue, Central Land Council and NSW Aboriginal Land Council.
Australians had been asked to support a permanent Aboriginal advisory body — or Voice — to parliament that would be enshrined in the constitution.
It marked the latest attempt to improve the lives of the indigenous population. The Voice would have been comprised of indigenous leaders across Australia, providing advice to the government of the day and parliament on key issues affecting Aboriginal people, from health to education, social welfare and housing. It would not have power to set policies or to veto them.
The goal was to help ministers make better-informed policies which would enable them to close the enormous gap that persists between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders account for just 3.8 per cent of Australia’s population of 26 million people.
Despite numerous initiatives by successive governments, and many billions of dollars of investment, young Aboriginal men are more likely to go to jail than university, and indigenous people are expected to die eight to nine years earlier than non-indigenous people.
The foundation stone of the Voice was the Uluru Statement of the Heart — the culmination of decades of campaigning — where more than 250 indigenous leaders gathered at the sacred rock in 2017 to agree a path forward on constitutional recognition.
The Yes campaign has enjoyed the overwhelming support of big business, and the backing of some of Australia’s most prominent sports stars, musicians and actors, from Cathy Freeman, the indigenous runner who famously claimed 400m gold at the 2000 Sydney OIympics, to legendary folk singer Paul Kelly.
But public support for the Voice, which was polling in the mid-60s last year, collapsed with polls suggesting the No vote began to pull ahead by July.
Latest polls suggest support for the Voice had also fallen sharply among indigenous people despite claims from the Yes camp that the vast majority of them back the change.
Opponents of the Voice mounted a highly effective campaign, spearheaded by two prominent indigenous figures, Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price — who is also the shadow minister for Indigenous Australians — and businessman Warren Mundine.
Their campaign honed in on the lack of detail provided by Albanese about how the Voice would work, adopting the simple message “if you don’t know, vote no”.
Opponents also gained traction with the public, including with other minorities, by claiming it would divide Australia by race, bestowing special privileges on one small minority.
Both messages appeared to resonate with the public, with No campaigners also promoting the idea that the new body would effectively become an unelected third chamber to promote the interests of Aboriginal people.
Albanese has been criticised for failing to secure bipartisan support, which was achieved for all eight of the 44 referendums that have passed in Australia since federation in 1901.
Accusations of racism levelled at No campaigners have also backfired.
The prominent indigenous academic Marcia Langton, a key advocate for the Voice, faced a backlash after claiming their tactics were based on “racism and stupidity”.
She quickly denied that she had been referring to No voters, but the damage had been done — with her statement likened to Hillary Clinton’s infamous “basket of deplorables” slur made during the 2016 election campaign to describe half of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s supporters.
Following the referendum result Senator Price, who has endured vitriolic personal attacks throughout the campaign and has had her phone number leaked online, declared Australia is “absolutely not a racist country”.
“The Australian people have overwhelmingly voted No,” she said. “They have said no to division in our constitution along the lines of race. They have said no to the gaslighting, bullying, to the manipulation, they have said no to grievance and the push from activists that we are a racist country when we are absolutely not a racist country.”